Ian Dunbar, dog whisperer

How can you compete with a puppy? First I want to say I’m sitting in the audience I had a tear in my eye. Last year I left EG very inspired. I changed my business, went home, digitized everything. Save a tree, download the book, download the DVD. Launched Jan 26, doggy newspaper, doggy magazine, doggy radio channel, and TV channel. Conventional media isn’t doing it for dog community. Dog training is a very strange profession, if any other profession you give advice and people listen to you, but here they don’t. [See Dog Star Daily.]

We want specific solutions to easily resolvable problems. When it comes to dog trainers owners don’t just make mistakes, they just get it all wrong. For example, let’s say someone has taken their dog to the park, the dog goes crazy, they put it on a leash, rewarding the dog for going crazy, they get pulled to the park and they keep walking rewarding the dog, and then they take it off the leash the biggest reward in urban dogdom, and then they call the dog over and when he comes they punish him by putting on the leash and wonder why he doesn’t come when called the next day.

Dog feedback is binary. Differential reinforcement. Punishment is the most misunderstood tool, doesn’t have to be painful or fearful to work, all we have to do is be calm and consistent. It’s not about dogs though, it’s about people. If you can’t house-train a puppy, how are you going to potty-train a child?